


Lookin' for a Place to Land

by dreamlittleyo



Series: This Hard Land 'Verse [2]
Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/M, Morning After, Romance, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: 100-2.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows, and Jo meets Inara.<br/><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Lookin' for a Place to Land

River gives her a look the next morning that's curious and knowing and entirely too mischievous. The girl doesn't _say_ anything, but she doesn't have to. The watchful glint in her eyes says clearly enough that she knows the final score. That she knows exactly what Jo and Mal got up to in the captain's bunk last night.

"Oh, sut up," Jo says, blushing despite her attempts at stoic composure. River just smiles at the words, gleefully conspiratorial, and Jo can't fight the tiny smile that twitches at the corners of her mouth.

"Good morning," says Simon, stepping into the kitchen with an air of quiet propriety and Kaylee just a step behind him.

"Mornin', Jo!" says Kaylee, warm and chipper. Jo still boggles at how she can be such an animated ball of positive energy, even in the lightless hours of a normal morning in space.

"Morning," Jo answers them both, pouring two mugs of coffee and handing them over. When Kaylee accepts hers and just stares at Jo for a disconcertingly long moment, Jo adds a confused, "What?"

Kaylee bites her lip in apparent concentration, expression unreadable for another couple beats, but finally her face brightens again and she says, "Nothin'." Like it really is nothing. But Jo is starting to feel like an interesting bug in a petri dish. When she glances back at River, the girl is still watching her with the same amused, cryptic expression as before.

Jo sort of expected this whole morning-after process to be strange, but she didn't figure on the whole crew being in on the weirdness. Hell, Jo feels a million times more awkward right now than she did twenty minutes ago, gathering her clothes from the floor and making her way up the ladder while Mal pretended to still be sleeping.

He _wasn't_ still sleeping. Jo is pretty much one hundred percent on that theory. But she didn't call him on it, because at the moment it's easier this way. Easier to play dumb until they work out the proper etiquette for their new arrangement.

Mostly, Jo just hopes the captain will let her close again. After last night, she only craves his proximity more.

The mess is full of quiet, mumbling conversation by the time Mal emerges to join them, and Jo half expects awkward silence to fall. Instead, the conversations ramp up a notch—a response every bit as suspicious, but Jo smirks into her coffee and appreciates the pretense. Obviously there are no secrets on Serenity—she pretty much figured that out in week one—but for the moment the status quo seems to mean looking the other way.

Which leaves Jo and Mal to make heated eye contact across the room—both pretending they don't notice River's measuring gaze dodging back and forth between them.

Jo doesn't approach Mal _every_ night after that. They've got a peculiar nonverbal communication between them, and Jo can tell when he needs her—restless nights after a job gone south, when he won't be able to sleep for all the shadows screaming in his head. Jo knows to go to him then, because those are the nights Mal needs something to hold on to, and she's happy to provide.

She goes to him when _she_ needs it, too. When she's lost and lonely and remembering more than usual of the fragmented life she left behind. It's easier to keep herself in the present when Mal's hands are on her, and then later when sleep drifts towards her in the sated warmth of his bed.

And sometimes the moment is just right—ripe with electricity and intent—and she climbs down the ladder to his bunk even though neither one of them _needs_ it exactly. Those nights are her favorites, because she finds humor in his eyes and teasing mischief in his touch.

She still sleeps alone as often as not, but she prefers Mal's bunk to her own. Her own bed never seems as warm.

They never talk about it in words. They talk about everything else—all the same things she hears him conversing about with the rest of the crew. Smuggling runs and engine repairs and replacement parts and chore division… all the menial details of living aboard a space ship, plus occasionally the more dramatic moments of setting up the next job. But they never talk about _them_ , and as weeks turn over into months, Jo finds she doesn't mind.

She reads ship schematics at the table in the mess sometimes. Today she's just finished sharpening her knives, and her favorite one is in her right hand. She's fidgeting with it absently, flipping it back and forth and through her fingers as she reads. The extra movement helps her focus, somehow, and since Kaylee won't even let her _look_ inside Serenity's engine until she's got these components memorized, Jo needs all the help she can get.

"It ain't right," she hears from the doorway, and glances up to find Jayne standing there watching her.

"What's not right?" Jo asks, setting down the schematics and cocking her head at him curiously. It doesn't make sense for him to disapprove of her and Mal, not this late in the game.

"That," says Jayne, nodding his head toward her as if the answer makes sense. "You even do it in your sleep?"

Jo realizes she's still fidgeting with the knife, and deliberately stills her hand and sets it down on the table beside her. "I dunno," she says, shrugging innocently. "How about you? You sleep with your guns, Jayne?"

He gives a caught-out grunt and saunters further into the room, taking the seat across from her and leaning forward on his elbows. "You actually like it, don't you," he says. "The violence and all that. You like being there when jobs go south."

Jo likes being there to help. She doesn't _think_ it's that she likes the violence. Then again, she'd be hard pressed to deny it if someone pointed out the way she starts to itch with anticipation whenever they go too long between jobs.

"Maybe," she finally concedes. "Is that a problem?"

"S'pose not," says Jayne, and eventually leaves her to her work.

Jo meets Inara for the first time only after hearing Kaylee talk about the woman for a solid three weeks. "You'll love her," Kaylee promises. "She's a real, proper lady. Practically like royalty! Inara's the best Companion there is."

Jo translates the word 'Companion' pretty quickly. And even though no one gives her specifics, she doesn't need rocket science to figure out that Inara's someone special—not just to the crew, but to Mal. The captain is surly and tense as they approach their destination, even as he insists this will be a cakewalk of a job.

"She just needs transport," Jo hears him grousing to Zoe. "Why she don’t just book a room on one of them high class Alliance freighters is beyond me."

"Maybe she wants it to be transport she _trusts_ ," Zoe points out reasonably. "It's a long trip."

"Maybe she's just homesick," Mal grumbles. But through the grating irritation, Jo can hear warmth and genuine fondness in his voice.

Inara is everything she expects and then some. Kaylee wasn't kidding about the royalty—if Jo didn't know who the woman was, she'd have guessed some kind of princess. Inara is beautiful and graceful, dressed in elegant fabrics and gorgeous jewelry, and when she steps onto the ship, it's like she fills up every corner with the bright, subtle force of her personality.

"I'm glad to meet you, Jo," Inara says, touching her hand in a way that doesn't quite count as a handshake. "Kaylee has told me so much about you."

"You, too," Jo says, smiling awkwardly and feeling completely out of her depth.

She feels even worse when Inara and Mal finally face off—there are layers upon layers of communication going on beyond the shallow surface exchange of "It's good to see you," and "How long will you be onboard". The captain's mounting tension from before makes so much sense when Jo watches the exchange: there are miles of unfinished business between these two. A history she can barely fathom. It makes her feel tiny and lost.

She doesn't climb down the ladder to Mal's bunk that night. She sleeps in her own bed, drifting off with the navigation equations she's been studying bouncing around in her head.

She decides to skip breakfast the next morning, because from the door to the kitchen she sees Mal and Inara sharing tense, cordial coffee. She's got as much right to that kitchen as anyone, sure, but it feels like intruding.

Unfortunately, there's nowhere else for her to go at this hour besides back to her bunk. She ends up in the cargo bay instead, sitting at the edge of a catwalk with her legs dangling over the edge—lost in directionless thoughts that leave her feeling anxious and off-balance.

Heavy footsteps tell her someone is approaching, and she knows even before he sits down beside her that it's Mal. He stays silent for long moments, and so does she. She's not trying to be difficult or hostile. She just has no idea what to say.

"I thought for sure you'd show last night," Mal says finally, voice a thin façade of neutral disinterest. Below that façade, Jo can hear the poorly masked worry in his tone. "It's the first time I've figured wrong. Wasn't sure what to think."

"It didn't feel right to visit your bunk, when…" ' _When what_?' she chides herself. ' _When your old flame was on board_?' She can't bring herself to say that aloud.

The silence that follows is heavy and considering—troubled and tense and more than a little uncomfortable. Jo turns to trail her eyes over the far wall of the bay, along the bulky ramp below.

"Inara and me," Mal finally says, so softly Jo can barely hear him. "I ain't gonna pretend there's no history there."

"You were together?" Jo asks. Her heart flutters violently in her chest, despite her best efforts to stay calm.

"No," says Mal. "Never happened, never will." He sounds so decisive that Jo finds herself staring at him all over again.

"Why not?" she asks, surprised to discover that she's as much genuinely curious as she is selfishly hopeful.

Mal gives her a long, considering look before answering, "I ain't the kind of man who can share. And she ain't ever going to stop being exactly who she is. We figured all that out long before you came along."

"Oh," Jo says dumbly. She's not sure what she's meant to take from that.

"I don't want you getting any wrong impressions," says Mal.

"Like what?"

"Like the idea that I don't realize how good a thing you and me have got." His eyes are piercing and inescapable. "Believe me, I know." Which makes Jo's rational mind feel foolish for doubting, and her chest feel impossibly tight.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jo can see Mal's hand twitch in his lap—like he wants to reach out and touch her, but doesn't know if it's allowed. They've never broadcast this business between them outside the captain's bunk, and Jo feels oddly relieved to know she's not the only one playing it by ear. There's no protocol for what they are to each other. There's just a tenuous connection, growing stronger by the day.

"You'll come tonight, won't you?" he asks, finally settling on keeping his hands to himself.

"Yeah," says Jo. Her voice feels hoarse in her throat.

"Good," says Mal, and climbs slowly to his feet. Jo watches him retreat down the length of the catwalk and descend the stairs. Even though he doesn't turn, Jo feels him watching her with every step.


End file.
